Waiting For the Right Box
Many of us have been waiting for the digital tuners to arrive in our television products. On March 1st of this year, anything that ships with a TV tuner, which includes TV's of all sizes, and all television recording devices must have a digital tuner (one loophole is that they can make a device with no tuner at all...).
Now that we're in the last week of March, I wanted to take a look around an see if the dust has started to settle. I'm unhappy to report that objectively, so far, very little has changed. Among the smaller TV's, there are still very limited choices of TV's less than 26" with a digital tuner. One model I've found is the somewhat overpriced Samsung LN-S2352W. It's a 23" model which is selling in the mid six hundreds, however it was available before March 1st anyway.
In the recording department, things are even more dismal. There is a definite need for consumer home recording devices. It looks like, not surprisingly, that DVD recorders will be first to market. On this week's trip through Best Buy, they were only selling one DVD recorder with a digital tuner, and it was going for around $230 (I think it was an LG). If you want to see the whole list of products that are coming with digital tuners to record, it's in the Wikipedia here.
Speaking from experience, I won't go the DVD Recorder route again. My last one, albeit from a Wal-mart in house brand, developed significant media compatibility issues after only a few months of use. It then died, just about a year to the day, into its short life span. During that time period, it ate more discs than it recorded at many points. I think that putting a television stream onto an optical disc with no real buffer is simply too great a trick for these stand alone boxes.
While my initial experience with a hard drive based device ended on the return line at the retailer, I still think that this approach has many merits. My plan was to buy a new hard drive recorder after the digital switch on March 1st. There's just one problem with my "best laid" plan- there aren't any to purchase! I've been through Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City and Amazon. What I'd like to own just isn't for sale yet. I've also read in a few forums that many other folks are holding out for a device of this type as well. so far we're all waiting for the outdated analog equipment to sell, or get tossed around back, and the new equipment with the digital tuners to arrive on a shelf. So far, this has not happened.
When might this gear arrive? Looking into the crystal ball, I'd guess anytime from April to the Fall. What I'd really like is a hard drive based recorder with a built in DVD recorder. The hard drive should be at least 120 gigs, and of course the box should have a digital tuner. Oh, and I'm not paying a monthly fee for Tivo etc. I don't expect it to record in HDTV, that will be the next generation of device that we won't see until a few years from now. I'm hoping the target price will be around $250, but it will probably cost more when it first comes out.
While researching this article, and ultimately my purchase, the only box that came close is this one from Phillips. The DVDR3575H/37 has a digital tuner, and a 160 gig hard drive so it is off to a nice start. So far the $361 price tag from a merchant I've never dealt with, or even heard of are deal breakers. A side issue is that there is very limited info about the device so far, and I don't want to be the beta tester.
So, for now, patience is what is needed. Sure, I could build a HTPC, but I'm still hoping for a dedicated box that I can purchase. I'm not sure what is taking the manufacturers so long to bring these products to market. It would seem that there is significant pentup demand for digital recording devices, and whichever company arrives first should gain, virtually overnight, significant market share. Stay tuned as products are introduced, we'll keep y'all up to date.
Now that we're in the last week of March, I wanted to take a look around an see if the dust has started to settle. I'm unhappy to report that objectively, so far, very little has changed. Among the smaller TV's, there are still very limited choices of TV's less than 26" with a digital tuner. One model I've found is the somewhat overpriced Samsung LN-S2352W. It's a 23" model which is selling in the mid six hundreds, however it was available before March 1st anyway.
In the recording department, things are even more dismal. There is a definite need for consumer home recording devices. It looks like, not surprisingly, that DVD recorders will be first to market. On this week's trip through Best Buy, they were only selling one DVD recorder with a digital tuner, and it was going for around $230 (I think it was an LG). If you want to see the whole list of products that are coming with digital tuners to record, it's in the Wikipedia here.
Speaking from experience, I won't go the DVD Recorder route again. My last one, albeit from a Wal-mart in house brand, developed significant media compatibility issues after only a few months of use. It then died, just about a year to the day, into its short life span. During that time period, it ate more discs than it recorded at many points. I think that putting a television stream onto an optical disc with no real buffer is simply too great a trick for these stand alone boxes.
While my initial experience with a hard drive based device ended on the return line at the retailer, I still think that this approach has many merits. My plan was to buy a new hard drive recorder after the digital switch on March 1st. There's just one problem with my "best laid" plan- there aren't any to purchase! I've been through Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City and Amazon. What I'd like to own just isn't for sale yet. I've also read in a few forums that many other folks are holding out for a device of this type as well. so far we're all waiting for the outdated analog equipment to sell, or get tossed around back, and the new equipment with the digital tuners to arrive on a shelf. So far, this has not happened.
When might this gear arrive? Looking into the crystal ball, I'd guess anytime from April to the Fall. What I'd really like is a hard drive based recorder with a built in DVD recorder. The hard drive should be at least 120 gigs, and of course the box should have a digital tuner. Oh, and I'm not paying a monthly fee for Tivo etc. I don't expect it to record in HDTV, that will be the next generation of device that we won't see until a few years from now. I'm hoping the target price will be around $250, but it will probably cost more when it first comes out.
While researching this article, and ultimately my purchase, the only box that came close is this one from Phillips. The DVDR3575H/37 has a digital tuner, and a 160 gig hard drive so it is off to a nice start. So far the $361 price tag from a merchant I've never dealt with, or even heard of are deal breakers. A side issue is that there is very limited info about the device so far, and I don't want to be the beta tester.
So, for now, patience is what is needed. Sure, I could build a HTPC, but I'm still hoping for a dedicated box that I can purchase. I'm not sure what is taking the manufacturers so long to bring these products to market. It would seem that there is significant pentup demand for digital recording devices, and whichever company arrives first should gain, virtually overnight, significant market share. Stay tuned as products are introduced, we'll keep y'all up to date.
Labels: ATSC tuner, Digital Television, hard drive recording
posted by digitaldoc at 9:05 PM
1 Comments:
I have experience with Sony DVD recorders. We have a bank of 4 here at work, each of which records continuously for 6 hours a day. The 4 machines cover a 24 hour period, so each machine runs for 6 hrs/day, 365 days of the year. These Sony's have been great and I don't think they were particularly expensive.
My home brew HD PVR uses a 320 gig SATA drive which so far has been adequate. I 1 hr program uses about 7 gigs of space.
At this point I would think that an HD PVR should be doable in the $500 to $700 range? Maybe more if you throw in the ability to offload content to a DVD. Best get these boxes out in the market before the DRM nazis get the broadcast flag implemented!
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